A Strong Economy Is The Secret To Winning Medals At The Winter Olympics

Team
USA women's ice hockey coach Katey Stone talks to her team during
a practice session in the Shayba Arena ahead of the 2014 Sochi
Winter Olympics February 7, 2014.REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Building a successful Winter Olympics team is expensive.

It takes top athletes, training, and equipment that tends to be
pricier than in the Summer Games.

"The Winter Olympics are a
useful backdrop for case studies on the relationship between
athletic performance and economic progress in emerging markets
around the world," writes ConvergEx's Nick Colas. "We’ve analyzed
the medal count by country since the inaugural Winter Games in
1924, and indeed the results show that athletes rarely make it to
the podium until their respective countries experience economic
progress and stability."

"Furthermore, consistent
podium-worthy performances in subsequent years are typically
correlated with GDP growth," he writes.

Colas provides some case
studies. From the note:

Japan’s Winter Olympic
performance history tells a post-WWII recovery
story. The
country competed in three Winter Games (1928, 1932 and 1936)
before it won its first medal – silver – in 1956.
Japanese athletes didn’t earn any additional medals until the
1972 games, which the country hosted, and have been
consistently making an appearance on the podium since
1980. Japan won its first medal when it was taking off as
an emerging economy and getting its economic act together
following WWII. Industrialism in the country picked up
rapidly following the war, and the Olympic medal consistency
coincided with the consumption boom in the 1980s.

South Korea’s Winter Games
story is similar to Japan’s, just two to three decades
later.
However, it did take South Koreans a bit longer to arrive on
the podium – the country competed in 10 Winter Games before
winning four medals in 1992 (two gold, one silver and one
bronze). Since then, South Korea has performed
consistently well, earning a peak of 14 medals at the 2010
Games in Vancouver. Just as the country fully emerged
from the shadow of the Korean War, its athletes were solid
performers on the global stage.

China’s performance history
is also emblematic of a developing economy gaining critical
mass in sport and economic growth. Like South Korea, China won its first
Winter Olympic medals in 1992 (three silvers). Chinese
athletes had competed in three prior games dating back to 1980
before the emerged on the podium in Albertville, France.
Also similar to South Korea, China consistently earned medals
in subsequent Games, recording a high of 11 at the 2010
Olympics. China underwent a host of economic reform
initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s; by the 1990s the country
experienced rapid economic growth (10.4% GDP) even with
skyrocketing inflation that topped 20% in 1994. Again,
consistent trips to the Winter Olympics podium went
hand-in-hand with an emerging economy.

Even the U.S.'s Olympic prowess is linked with the economy, Colas
notes.

"In the earlier years of the Winter Olympics, the United
States lagged the likes of Finland and Norway in the medal
count," he writes. "Later on in the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet
Union/Russia and Germany also topped the U.S. in trips to the
podium. And though the United States continued to improve
throughout the latter half of the 20th century, it actually
wasn’t until 2010 that American athletes won more medals than any
other nationality."